However this was not the first time Captain America was shown to be character in the MCU, a version of Captain America's trademark shield can be seen in the Iron Man movie in 2008 on Tony Stark's workbench. It appears again in Iron Man 2 (2010) being held by Phil Coulson. [1] When Thor's film (2011) came out it was revealed in the post-credits at a connection with the Captain via the Tesseract.

Fandom

Even before the release of the Captain America: The First Avenger film, Steve Rogers occasionally made appearances in fanfic labeled "movieverse" (either a specific one, e.g. Iron Man, or just generally, i.e. Marvel Cinematic Universe). These fics tended to have Steve as a secondary character to a character who has had a film come out, and are usually only "movieverse" in the sense that they contain a few minor concepts unique to movieverse continuity.

After The First Avenger was released, the fandom grew but still remained fairly small, with less than 1,000 works on AO3 before the release of The Avengers in 2012.[2] But at that point, the Captain America fandom grew significantly in conjunction with the explosion of the Avengers fandom overall. On AO3, works tagged with "Captain America (Movies)" went from less than 1,000 to over 4,000,[3] and there were over 15,000 works posted in the Marvel Cinematic Universe parent tag that had Steve Rogers as a character.[4]

The release of Captain America: The Winter Soldier produced the greatest surge in Captain America-specific fanworks and excitement to-date. In less than two months the use of the "Captain America (Movies)" tag doubled on AO3, going from approximately 4,000 works to over 7,300.[5]

Controversies

Spoiler Warning: This article may contain spoilers. If this bothers you, proceed with caution.

After the release of The Winter Soldier several fandom controversies arose around race and racism in fandom.

IBelieveInSitwell

In The Winter Soldier, SHIELD agent Jasper Sitwell, who had previously appeared Thor, The Avengers, and on Agents of SHIELD, was killed after it was revealed that he was secretly a member of Hydra. While Sitwell was blonde haired and blue eyed in the comics, he was played by Latino actor Maximiliano Hernández and was the only Latino recurring character in the MCU. The decision to make him Hydra and kill him off received significant criticism, as did the significantly lower fandom interest in rallying to save Sitwell versus the rallying to save Phil Coulson after he was killed off in The Avengers:

Let's take a look at the trajectory of the two main SHIELD agents we see as background characters throughout the MCU: Coulson and Sitwell. Now, I love Clark Gregg as Coulson, and I think he deserves his central role in Agents of SHIELD. But CATWS basically tells us that out of two recurring characters who were given similar incidental roles in the franchise, the white guy was pushed to have a well-developed storyline and a huge fanbase, while the Latino character's most significant contribution was to become an inexplicable supervillain minion, and then a corpse. --Hello, Tailor[6]

Marvel’s decision to muddy the metaphor of HYDRA as Nazi stand-ins gets more horrifying when you realize that by using Sitwell (who was formerly blond and blue-eyed in the comics and now a Latino) it makes no sense for Sitwell to have gone to HYDRA knowing what they were about. That’s what the #ibelieveinSitwell movement is about, bringing back a great character who was clearly killed off too early. . . If you care at all about this disgusting tendency by Hollywood to use poc as low level criminals and targets for abuse then you’ll take action and point out to Marvel and Agents of SHIELD that Jasper Sitwell’s storyline cannot be over yet. --FandomsHatePOC[7]

Sitwell fans use the hashtag#ibelieveinsitwell on Twitter to call for a resurrection plot, and Hernández himself retweeted some of the entries.

Sam Wilson is Hydra Controversy

MCU BNFscifigrl47 posted a meta on tumblr (which has since been taken down) arguing that the movieverse needed to start integrating its characters better, addressing where the other Avengers were in the solo movies (for example, mentioning that Thor was in Asgard and so unavailable to help during The Winter Soldier). As a part of that meta, she postulated that Sam Wilson could have been a Hydra agent, and that it would have made more sense for Steve to trust Tony Stark. Many other fans immediately called out the post as an example of the racism typical of fandom in general and Stony fans in particular:

Someone going to point out how this is built on the idea that the black character is some how unfit to be that close to Steve without some ulterior motive? Somehow that can make the MCU more connected? Somehow its more logical for him to be Hydra than Tony (I don’t think either is really logical, personally, but I know why people are likely to throw Sam out, and I know why this relates to people mad that Tony wasn’t in Captain America 2).

I have noticed that, no matter the fandom, the black character is always collateral damage in these conversations. --phoenix-ace[9]

You can make your argument for your character without vilifying characters of color. It is entirely possible to argue for more mention of the Avengers and Stark not being Hydra without ever needing to bring Sam into this. You could’ve said, “Hey, maybe Sharon was a Hydra spy. After all, she was stationed to be Steve’s guard, and we didn’t know anything about her.” Or you could’ve said, “It’s more believable that Natasha could be Hydra since that was a plot point in the movie.” Or you could’ve said, “I’d believe it more if Clint was Hydra than Tony since he’s done so much work for SHIELD and Nick Fury, he’s definitely a more viable candidate.”

The fact that Sam was brought into this as an example of a possible Hydra spy, as an untrustworthy character, is what tipped this from a discussion about coherent universes to “goddamn, fandom, you are racist as shit” meta because you couldn’t even defend your white favorite without automatically throwing suspicion onto the black male character who practically has a hallelujah choir playing whenever he’s onscreen. You didn’t even think about the consequences of claiming that a black man could join a Nazi-ish organization, you just threw his name in there so that people would stop saying that Tony could be Hydra. --Dammit MCU[10]

That was not a ship war that went down. Someone (you know who you are), out of nowhere, decided to posit the idea that Sam could be a HYDRA agent, right when his popularity in the fandom was going friggin’ exponential. . . People like me saw what was going on. We knew what was happening and why these people just needed Sam Wilson to be untrustworthy. We’d seen the same towards Rhodey post-IM2 and we didn’t have to connect any dots to figure out what was really going on. . . So we called people on their bullshit, threw their racism in their faces and defended the fuck out of Sam Wilson.

But no, all some people saw was a “ship war,” two ships playing Tug of War over Steve Rogers.

That was not about wanting to see Steve and Sam bumping their dicks together all night, but about stopping the erasure of yet another person of color in the Marvel fandom and preventing lies and false characterizations from turning into accepted fanon. --Not Applicable[11]

Shipping

For a long time, Steve/Tony was the largest pairing in the fandom, even though before the release of The Avengers the two characters had never met in the MCU. After the release of The First Avenger, Bucky/Steve became the second-most popular pairing, while Howard/Steve and Peggy/Steve grew to significant minor pairings.[12]

After the release of The Avengers, Steve/Tony remained the largest ship due to their antagonistic relationship on screen,[13] and spawning many Steve/Tony-specific communities. Bucky/Steve and Peggy/Steve remained small pairings while Howard/Steve declined in popularity,[14] and a number of new Avengers-specific or crossover pairings appeared. The crossover pairing of Darcy/Steve became the most popular het pairing in the fandom and Natasha/Steve and Loki/Steve both became mid-sized pairings, as did Bucky/Natasha based on their relationship in the comics and the announcement that Natasha would appear in The Winter Soldier.[15] Minor pairings included Phil/Steve, Bruce/Steve, Maria/Steve, and Clint/Steve.[16] There was even some fandom interest in pairing Steve with a waitress named Beth whose life he saved in the climactic battle sequence and who appeared in a deleted scene.[17]

The release of The Winter Soldier created an enormous spike in interest in Bucky/Steve, causing it to overtake Steve/Tony as the largest ship in the Captain America fandom by 2014.[18] As of 2016, Bucky/Steve is now the largest ship in the MCU overall.[19] The crossover and Avengers-based pairings all dipped significantly, and there was a rise in the popularity of both Peggy/Steve and Natasha/Steve.[20] A new ship, Sam/Steve, also appeared and quickly acquired a significant fanbase.[21] There was some interest in Sharon/Steve just before the movie's release based on the announcement of her appearance and their relationship in the comics, but the movie failed to deliver on much ship-potential, so it didn't gain traction.[22] A small crack ship was born in Clint/Sam, despite the lack of Clint Barton in any Captain America movie, based almost entirely on both characters having bird code names.

Fanwork

Fics

An epic (and epic length) post-Winter Soldier recovery story that deals painfully with the realistic after-effects of seventy years' worth of intense trauma while treating Steve and Bucky like humans. It's also something of a love-letter to Betty Ross (of The Incredible Hulk) and Sam Wilson.

...And its follow-up series, which is rapidly approaching the original's word-count (not to daunt anyone). A series of shorts in Steve and Bucky's lives spanning from before the War to after the end of your blue-eyed boys. Contains kittens, fierce thirteen year old traceuses, angry ex-girlfriends, and nightmarishly realistic examinations of PTSD and complex trauma. A life can contain much that is good and sweet as well as much that is awful, and these stories of Feather's do exactly that.

↑Before May 2012, there were 244 works posted to AO3 using the Steve/Tony tag, 142 works posted using the Bucky/Steve tag, 78 works posted using the Howard/Steve tag, and 74 works posted using the Peggy/Steve tag (but only 58 of those are marked "het" indicating that Peggy/Steve is the primary relationship).

↑Of the 3,402 works posted to AO3 in the "Captain America (Movies)" tag between May 2012 and April 2014, 760 were tagged Steve/Tony.

↑Number of works posted to AO3 in the "Captain America (Movies)" tag between May 2012 and April 2014: 749 for Bucky/Steve; 248 for Peggy/Steve (190 labeled het); 123 for Howard/Steve.

↑Number of works posted to AO3 in the "Captain America (Movies)" tag between May 2012 and April 2014: 285 for Darcy/Steve; 91 for Natasha/Steve; 74 for Loki/Steve; 148 for Bucky/Natasha.

↑There were between 20 and 40 works posted to AO3 between May 2012 and April 2014 in the "Captain America (Movies)" for each of these pairings.

↑As of 23 May 2014, in the "Captain America (Movies)" tag on AO3 there were 2,399 works posted for Bucky/Steve and 1,169 posted for Steve/Tony. As of 8 May 2016, there were 14,839 works posted for Bucky/Steve and 2,317 posted for Steve/Tony.

↑See the relationship tag filter on the MCU works page of the AO3 as of 8 May 2016. Steve/Bucky had 17558 fanworks.

↑In May of 2016 there were 1,631 Peggy/Steve and 1,020 Natasha/Steve works posted in the "Captain America (Movies)" tag on AO3.

↑As of 8 May 2016 there were 962 works posted to AO3 in the "Captain America (Movies)" tag for Sam/Steve.

↑As of 23 May 2014 there were only 23 works posted to AO3 in the "Captain America (Movies)" tag with Sharon/Steve as a pairing, and a majority of them were posted prior to the release of The Winter Soldier.